Step into the Inferno
by MeatBucket Productions
Summary: Finding themselves in a hostile new world that seems to be trying to kill them at every turn Penelope and five other survivors are left to try and survive. Will they be able to live through their adventure? Will they be able to find their way back home? Only time will be able to tell! (Also remember to review if you want, they always help!)
1. The Woman in Red

Step into the Inferno

Chapter One: The Woman in Red

The first thing she did when she woke was grab the wrist of the hand that had woken her from the darkness of sleep. With an iron grip on the hand which started to yank away she quickly pulled it down in a matter of seconds getting a small yelp from the owner of the hand. All in a matter of seconds she opened her eyes and immediately released the man who had gently tapped her shoulder when she had been sleeping on the floor.

"What'd ya have to do that for?" Paris said as he reeled away, one hand clasped on his left wrist, "was only trying to get ya to wake up." Deciding that his wrist was not as badly hurt as the first suspected he dropped it to his side and looked at the woman who was quickly pulling herself from the floor. "Next time I'll get Jason to get ya up," he muttered.

"I'm sorry Paris!" Penelope stumbled as she pulled herself up gathering the lose nightgown she had draped over herself, "it's just a habit," she admitted weakly. Seeing that he had dropped his hand to his side she let out a sigh of relief, the last thing she needed would be someone with a broken hand. "You alright?" she questioned still feeling a thin scrap of guilt, Paris was not the strongest out of the six of them and was definitely not made for where they were now.

"Yes I'm okay," he said and wiped a few curls of dark blond hair from his bright blue eyes. He smiled a bit as he looked back up at her, "I guess it was really my fault either way." He started to walk towards the other side of the stone room which fed into another chamber by a small tunnel, "oh, and Jason wants to see you- according to him it's your shift."

Smoothing out a small bit of dust which had settled on her gown she wore she groaned and looked at the doorway to her right where Jason would most likely be waiting with his damned rifle still clutched in his hands. "If there could be at least one day when I could get more than three hours of sleep," she grumbled as she headed to the right.

"Well I could take your shift if you want," Paris buttered out from the doorway on the other side of the room; when she turned to face him she could see that a few red patches had blossomed on his cheeks. "Only if ya want," he said immediately dropping his gaze to the roll of blankets Penelope was using as a mattress.

"It's fine," she said as she made her way into the room that was positioned right beside hers, "you go and get some rest; you deserve it," she offered him a sympathetic smile.

"Thank you Penny," Paris said smiling with the set of roses that had sprouted on his cheeks quickly vanishing back to pale skin, "see ya when your sift ends!"

She watched as Paris went into the next room almost tripping on his own foot and quickly glancing back at Penelope to see if she had seen it. Quickly diverting her attention to the ceiling of the heated gray room Penelope started to make her way into Ajax's room which was positioned next to hers.

There was not much in the way of privacy there with only one room for each of the six people and the only way around the whole structure was by walking through everyone's room. It was especially terrible for Paris who had the room at the direct end of the structure making him walk through every single bedroom when it was time for his shift. Penelope had one less room to walk through but as she stumbled into Ajax's room she could see that he was currently quickly scribbling into the small leather bound book he claimed to not have.

"Sorry," Penelope muttered as she quickly cross through the room watching as Ajax quickly closed the thing and quickly sat on it, trying to look busy with something else.

"No problem," he said grabbing his water bottle and quickly taking a swig but by then Penelope was already stepping into the room right next to Ajax's.

Jocasta was luckily asleep with her face buried in the fur coat that she used to separate herself from the stone floor; her bright fans of red hair almost hiding her head in the makeshift mattress. Quietly stepping through the room Penelope was about to walk through the small hallways and into the next room when she thought she heard Jocasta mutter from beneath the mass of bright red hair.

"_Not hungry… please go… go away_," she muttered just before shifting on the fur coat sending streams of red hair flying, revealing the pale freckled face underneath.

Furrowing her brow at the mysterious muttering Penelope watched as she shifted in her sleep again and said something which was nothing but a mumble. Considering what had happened a few days earlier it as no surprise that she was having weird dreams, everyone seemed to be having their own nightmare of what had happened. Taking a mental note to ask Jocasta about it later Penelope continued across the room and stepped into Aeneas' bedroom.

Aeneas was reading one of the few books they had and was sitting cross legged in the corner of the stone chamber scanning over the text. Facing away from the small thin window that was positioned near the ceiling of each chamber he managed to catch the faded red light that filtered through the glass. She could see that the book he had was already faded and creased, having been read what she guessed could've been eight times.

Hearing her he turned from the book and grinned at her, "good luck prying that rifle from Jason's hands," he said and then quickly turned back to his book, flipping to a new page.

"He won't be so stubborn with me," Penelope said brightly as she passed through letting Aeneas slip deeper into whatever realm the book was set in.

Finally she entered Jason's room which was the only one of the stone chambers that did not have the thin stretch of glass to illuminate the room; it instead was in near darkness. This was mostly because where the small window was supposed to be was a dark stairway leading up to the only door out of the place where Jason spent most of his time. As she entered the room a voice from the dark stairwell called down to her.

"Hey there Penny!" the voice greeted her and she looked up to see that a darker shade which was sitting next to the metallic door stand up and move down the staircase. As it entered the thin trickle of faded red light which came from Aeneas' room she could see it was Jason done up in the old military jumpsuit he had found. Clasped in his hands was a sawed off shotgun which he carried with the same delicacy as a mother with a newborn.

"Haven't seen anything yet," he said and jerked a thumb to the tall metal door which kept them from the outside, "but I guess that's kind of a good thing."

"Guess it is," Penelope said, "another pack will move into the area before long, nothing to really worry about."

"Yeah," Jason said dripping the short neck of the shotgun until his knuckles became small white pebbles. "Do you need to fill up your water bottle?" he questioned and motioned to the small pump squatted in one corner of the room. Walking over to the matted fleece he sprawled out for his bed he dropped down and look up at Penelope still cradling the sawed off shotgun, "it's not like the pump is going to dry up any time soon."

"I'm fine," Penelope said and looked at the nervous way Jason was gripping the shotgun, hunched up on the golden fleece twisted with dirt and grime. "Something wrong?" she questioned, her eyes drifting down to the way Jason seemed to be clutching the weapon for dear life.

Seeing the way her eyes drifted down to the rustic thing his grip on it immediately loosened on the thing almost letting it drop down to the stone floor. Suddenly standing up he offered a nervous and somewhat apologetic grin and dropped the gun into her hands before backing off to sit down on the fleece. "Sorry Penny," he muttered, "it's just that being this close to surface lets the sounds come in from outside, just makes me a bit nervous."

"Well I'm sure that we're safe in here," Penelope said taking the gun into her hand and letting it hang by her side, "whoever built this place had built it to last." Seeing a small trickle of relief pass over Jason's face she offered him a smile and looked at the way his face still seemed to be pale and remembered the metallic door that stooped overhead of them.

"Something you want to say?" Jason said with an uneasy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Well if being this close to the door is freaking you out then me and you could swap places," she jerked a thumb to the small hallway which tunneled through all six rooms. "Only if you want," Penny said with a smile; she had found that the best way to get someone to agree with her was by always telling them that it was their decision. While no one really seemed to discuss any kind of leader most people did look for Penny if the pump got jammed or another hoard had appeared on the other side of the door.

"Well I'm not sure if you'd like it," Jason said still resting on the golden fleece and leaning against the stone wall, "me and Jocasta swapped rooms once and she pulled me out of 'her' room after a week." The last word came out as a question, the only time system the part of six had was when most people were sleeping (o'clock) and when most people were awake (o'clock). Ajax had a pocket watch but after a few weeks of finding themselves in this _new place_ Ajax almost threw it out.

"I'm sure," Penny said offering a hand to Jason, "it'll be fine," she pulled Jason to his feet and then pointed down to the hallway to her room. "Now if you're tired of sitting here in the dark you can go sleep in my room and when my shift ends I'll come by and collect my stuff," she brought the gun up and let it lean on her right shoulder, "is that okay?"

"Yeah," Jason said as he picked up the matted fleece almost hesitantly before turning to the few trinkets he had placed in the corner. "And you're sure you don't mind?" he said fingers a few inches away from the old army tag that had once been in the pocket of the jump suit he was wearing.

"Not at all," Penelope reassured and took a glance up at the metallic door, "and again I'll pick up my stuff later so you can just push it aside when you get there."

"Thank you," Jason said as he plucked the last of his belongings from the floor, "of course Paris will have to come all the way here to see you every day."

Blushing slightly she turned to the stairwell leading up to the door, "nah, he wouldn't come here every day just to see me; we just live by each other." Paris was just a friend and he saw her as just a friend, right?

"Well I guess we'll see," Jason said and winked before going into Aeneas' room with his fleece and his trinkets gathered in his hands.

Rolling her eyes at the departing Jason, Penelope walked up the short flight of stairs and completely into the darkness that filled the space around the door. Leaning against the door she put the sawed off shotgun on her lap and exhaled, letting her mind wander as the warmness of the door seeped through her nightgown. Luckily she was short enough so that the handle of the door still jutted from the face of steel a few inches above her head, letting her rest her head on her shoulder without the lock and handle dig into the side of her head.

Faintly through the door she could hear the calls of the things from the outside, the crackle of fire and the always constant low moan that seemed to fill the air. Normally the sounds of the outside would creep her out but the need for rest let her pass right through it, making her lean against the door like it was a bundle of cushions. Unlike Paris she had grown rather comfortable resting in this strange new place they had found themselves in.

Every so often the view of what was Jason's room at the bottom of the stairs drifted into darkness, wavering and wobbling into a strange half sleep. Whatever sleep that had eluded her when she was resting in her own room seemed to have turned around and was desperately trying to catch up with her, pulling herself down to the ground. Since time seemed to be meaningless in the small span of bunkers Penelope and the people she had started to call her friends now rested it simply flowed by as she started to slip into the black folds of sleep.

Soon enough her dreary shift of guarding broken up by sleeping slipped into stretches of sleeping broken by the occasional moment of guarding. The few times her eyes drifted open the world seemed dark and faded, moving slowly before her eyes as she spiraled down deeper in sleeping. Even with the sounds on the other side of the door, which almost seemed softer as she started to fall into a deeper rest, didn't bother her; the warmness seeping through the steel almost seemed to be calling to her.

After a while her vision of the stairwell and the room at its feet was lost in hazy darkness as she slumped against the tall door. Flickering in the midst of the swirling haziness was…

_A memory._

_ An old memory at that._

_ She found herself in the Dock once again covered in the charred remains of what may have been a bookshelf standing opposite to her. When she manages to open her eyes she finds the entire room covered in chunks of fired metal and wood along with charred scraps of things she would rather not think about. Even after what could've been years for all she knew of lying on the ash covered floor she could still hear a distant ringing from the depths of her own head._

_ The ringing is distant but with the entire world around her being so silent it seemed to be screaming in her ears, filling the entire world with the constant tolling of bells. As she gets a look around she can why the world has become so silent, the dead lay everywhere some larger chunks surrounded by the burned scraps she had spotted earlier. Some of the corpses around her are still mostly intact with nearly full faces looking up at her with screams still frozen on their lips; making the constant ringing look like it was issuing from the frozen mouths. _

_ Her stomach turns and churns as one corpse has only a red smear for the left side of their face leaving a red cracked line running across the rest of their face. It almost seemed that from the red gaping hole that had once been a mouth came the ringing, coming from deep inside the cracked chest of the thing laying next to her. Her stomach somersaults inside her sending whatever last meal she has slither close to coming out of her completely._

_ Slowly pulling herself to her feet she leans against a broken blackened column and steadies herself, waiting until her legs stopped quivering to start walking. Carefully avoiding the blackened things strewn on the tiled floor she staggers to the door which had been blown off its hinges, laying a good ten feet away in three pieces. None of it exactly registering she pulls herself through the ash coated doorway trying to desperately move from the remaining screaming face._

_ Now in the hallway that was outside the door she starts to move down it trying to find the breath to call for one of the guards she had seen scurrying around the place. However each room she spots is empty or nothing but a still smoking crater blown into the structure itself. Heaving in another breath she manages to drag herself towards the end of the hallways until she suddenly sees the door she remembered walking through, to the room where she found Paris._

_ Hobbling past the second to last door she reaches the final stretch of blackened tiled floor to see that the place where Pairs should be lying still knocked out is gone, nothing but a crude black outline has been sloppily scrawled on the wall. Something else is different as well; instead of a sizzling crater filling the very end of the wall the back wall is still intact and has a single broken body lying in front of her._

_ Unlike the few others she had spotted either through one of the other doorways or had woken up next to this body was not burned and torn apart, something else had killed it. Not seeing the exact cause of death, or rather not wanting to see, she could see that it was a woman in a red dress that was now torn and rumpled. Around the entire woman was a pool of bright red blood that still seemed to be spreading._

_ The woman's neck was bent at an odd angle, facing down towards the ground, hiding the face. However she could see that the mouth was stretched open and single drops of cheery red blood was dripping from the cracked lips. A scream stretched and warped a face that would usually be something of great beauty leaving the disfigured mangle a sight of pure horror._

_ Backing away Penelope felt a scream start to rise from her lips when from the hallway behind her came the sound of ringing, much like metal being tapped on glass. Turning around she_

Tumbling forward, nearly falling down the stairs when a sudden beating sound comes from the other side of the door making Penelope wake with a start. Before tumbling all the way down she steadied herself and turned to face the tall metallic door which was rumbling in its socket, rattling and ready to fall. In mute shock she pulled up the shotgun and aimed it at the door as the thing pounding on the other side let out a stomach twisted scream.

In a flash and without a word she dove forward to the door and found what she was looking for, a small handle sticking from the middle of the door. Pushing the handle into the door and then sliding it to the left a small section of the metallic door opened revealing a small rectangle view of the outside. Not wasting any time she backed up and placed what was left of the maw of the shot gun in the newly made opening and squeezed down the trigger.

Taking a few stumbling steps backwards as the gun recoiled into her shoulder she let the gun drop to the ground as the pounding and screaming from the other side of the door was cut off. Looking at the door now she could see that a hazy red light was shining in from the opening she made which was no longer being obscured by what had been standing outside. Pressing her face to the door and looking outside she could feel the heat that came with the light, the dry heat of the outside; she could see the thing lying down at the door.

"What was that?" Aeneas questioned as he appeared at the foot of the stairs, looking up at Penelope who was closing the small viewport she handmade in the door and was now working on the many locks. Glancing down she could see that Jason and Jocasta had joined Aeneas at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her in shock.

"Me getting dinner," she said with the faint touches of a morbid smile on her face. Finishing the last lock on the door Penelope scooped up the shotgun from the ground and gripped the surprisingly cold door handle, ready to fling it open.

"I'll help," Aeneas said as he ran up the stairs and had just enough time to get to the top before Penelope flung open the door, letting in a flood of hazy red light. Aeneas almost found himself falling back down the stairs as red light filled his vision and the twisting calls and cries of the outside world filled his ears, but he pressed forward. Looking through the door he still felt the shocked amazement of when he had first woken up in this place.

Penelope came from the door first reaching into the pocket of the nightgown she was wearing and pulling out the pocket knife she had found when she had first came _here_. In one swift movement as she dove forward she drew out the knife and looked at the thing she had shot that was looking at her with a single remaining eye.

Neither she nor any of her friends knew what to call the things that occasionally wandered near the door but whatever things they were they were absolutely disgusting. The upper right corner of the creature's head was gone leaving only an ancient and musty skull surrounded by withered skin. The rest of the face was a strange vaguely man shaped face but twisted with the features of a pig, its biggest attraction being the deformed snout rising from above the distorted maw of its mouth. It's body was in the shape of a man but seemed more like a boar's form stretched and molded to fit into it; part of the torso was worn away as well to show glistening white bones.

Paying no mind to it she brought the knife down on the things throat as it tried to gurgle out some kind of pathetic excuse of speech. Slashing it across the throat a hoarse scream came from the mouth before its remaining eye started to roll and flicker about in its socket. Suddenly the thing was pulled away from her and she turned back to see Aeneas latched onto the feet of the twisted thing and pulling it through the door, but its eye was still lingering at the air around Penelope.

As the black eye finally stilled and the head was yanked through the doorframe she started to run back through when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Or rather _someone_ standing almost out of the corner of her vision.

The land around the outside of the door was a twisted red terrain, full of strange red rocks that seemed to have been melted and then frozen at strange shapes. The entire place was mostly a large dome in the red rock and was open on one side to the world beyond the strange cave. All at glance she could see the twisted cliffs at the edge of the dome which led into the burning sea of fire that seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction.

Jutting out from the edge of the dome was a natural bridge which stretched away from their current hiding place and was also the route the strange creatures took to find them. However instead of Penelope's friends or another twisted monstrosity there was a figure standing on the edge of the bridge, looking out over the sea of fire. Dark against the bright haze of the burning ocean it took Penelope a few seconds to realize what the thing was.

A woman in a red dress stood on the very edge of the opening, feet dangling over the lip and over the boiling sea of liquid fire far below. In a few quick seconds the woman raised her arms almost like she was going to try ad fly over the bubbling red fire far below her but when she lurched forward she dropped. Without a sound the woman tumbled over the ledge and out of sight.

Penelope began to scream.

**A/N: A new story has appeared! After a good three months of silence I'm back! I've had this idea in my head for a while now and I think I was able to transfer it to a story pretty easily. About a year ago I saw a random video of these guys who had been going into the Nether for some netherbrick when the server crashed and when they came back it turned out all the Nether portals were shut off. So they were stuck, no one had any flint and steel to relight the portal, and had to look for a second nether portal and from that moment on I realized I wanted to write about it.**

**So ya got this! I hope ya like it! **

**(P.S. Bonus points if people can guess that theme with the names! Even though it's kind of obvious if ya get down to it XD)**


	2. The Drifting Song

Step into the Inferno

Chapter Two: The Drifting Song

She felt herself get pulled backwards, a hand gripping her nightgown and sending her toppling backwards and into Aeneas' arms. Still screaming she tries to focus on the spot where the woman in red had been flung into the burning ocean below and felt the rising panic that burned through her body. Scream after scream ripped through her throat, shredding her lungs as it seemed the whole world was starting to collapse in on itself, the woman in the red dress was dead!

Aeneas continued to pull her back through the door, dragging her across the molted red stone floor as fast as he could. Awkwardly planting a foot on the first step down he brought her through inch by inch as she continued to scream, screaming and trying to reach out into the air for something that wasn't there. Blindly trying to place a foot on the second step he missed and suddenly the both of them were plucked from halfway out the door to falling down the stairs where they landed in a jumbled heap.

Even as they feel and even when they landed in a heap at Jason's feet Penelope still felt a raw surge of panic bubble from deep in her chest and kept screaming. Everything- everything-everything-everything was wrong-wrong-wrong! The woman was dead! She was dead! The woman was dead! She had to keep screaming; screaming into the world that meant nothing to her, the only way to ease the panic boiling in her lungs was to scream. Even when Aeneas placed a rough hand over her mouth she let out muffled screams as she relived the woman diving down into the burning ocean far below.

Jason flew past them and headed straight for the door which still let in the flood of hazy red light and reached out for the door handle which was in the hostile environment outside. Giving the harsh landscape beyond him a quick look he slammed the door shut in a space of two seconds, cutting off the red light and washing Penelope and Aeneas in darkness. Twisting around to see the two of them Jason looked down to see with a great deal of relief that Penelope was silent in the darkness, the insane screaming had stopped with the slamming of the door.

"Are ya alright?" the voice of Paris questioned from the room beside what would now be Penelope's, she turned to see the blond haired youth trying to force himself through Jocasta. "Ya alright Penny?" he asked looking immediately at Penelope who had gone silent, he glanced briefly at the dead body of the creature that had been pulled in and then back at Penny, scanning her for some kind of wound.

"I'm alright," Penelope said as she staggered to her feet shaking her head of the strange fog which had started to settle there, whatever panic she had was gone. Paris finally forced himself into the room almost sending Jocasta to the floor who was still looking at the situation with the glaze of sleep over her eyes. "Don't worry Paris, I'm alright," Penelope started to repeat as she straightened the now dirty nightgown she had on, "I'm alright."

"You sure?" questioned a voice from the doorway, Ajax was looking into the room confused. "Did that thing bite you Penny?" he questioned running a hand through his hair. While it seemed he was confused he still seemed to be calm, the only time he ever grew concerned was when he was writing in the notebook he claimed he didn't have. "Or did you hurt yourself falling down the stairs? How about you Aeneas, anything broken?"

"No I'm fine," Aeneas muttered as he straightened himself, "I'm mostly worried about Penelope. What did you see out there?" he questioned.

Penelope felt her throat go dry as she looked at the five stares that were now focused on her, she realized with building embarrassment that she had been screaming and at the top of her lungs. Desperately in the few seconds of silence she had before words would pour out of her mouth, for better or for worse, she tried to remember what had caused her to feel the world crushing horror. Her mind remained foggy and all she could remember was gazing out onto the sea and having Aeneas pull her back in before she brought a whole legion of the strange boar creatures on their shelter.

"I'm not really sure to be honest," she said feeling sweat starting to bead on her forehead, she felt a flash of shame when she saw Paris' large blue eyes staring at her filled with concern. "I'm sorry," she said blindly trying to grip on what had happened when she had gone through the door and had looked up, she had seen _something _but now the memory seemed foggy like a dream within a dream.

"Well maybe you should take it easy," Jason suggested who had reclaimed the sawed of shotgun he had bestowed the Penny only a good hour, if it was an hour, ago. "I'm sure someone will be able to take your shift," he said and before Jason even had enough time to look at Paris the young man already burst forward.

"I'll do it," he said firmly and then glanced at Penelope who was now running a hand nervously through along curl of brown hair. "I mean it's not a big deal or anything and ya need your rest Penny," he concluded stepping across the small room to Jason.

"You sure?" Jason said with the touches of a smile on his lips, with gray eyes he looked at the youth with a small hint of knowing. Everyone else in the room already knew that the answer would be _yes_, if it involved Penny it seemed Paris would run to the ends of the earth and back for her.

"Of course," he said and a smile split his face when Jason dropped the shotgun in his hand. "Thank you," he said and then turning to beam a smile at Penny he walked up the steps and took his position by the door. His shift had been before Jason's giving him about an hour and so of sleep but as he leaned the gun against his shoulder and stood by the door it seemed as though he had enough energy to run a marathon.

Looking up at this and then at Ajax, Aeneas started to walk out and rolled his eyes. Passing Ajax he lowered his voice and said with a smile, "the kid's gonna drop dead any day now at this rate." Walking into his room he looked up at Ajax who was starting to walk down the connecting hallway and added, "of course he'll only pass out when Penny says he can."

Penny rolled her eyes and turned to face Jocasta who had remained mostly silent with a rather worrying look of sleep still plastered over her eyes. "I don't really know what it was," Penny told her bringing Jocasta from whatever void she had been peering into up to Penny's face, "all I remember is being really scared."

"Well maybe it's just this place," Jocasta offered smoothing out a few knots in her hair while continuing the march up out of sleep. "I know a lot of people are kind of unsettled about it," she turned to face the doorway where Ajax and Aeneas has slipped through, "I know Ajax wouldn't go outside unless he was paid too. I probably wouldn't unless I really had to."

"I guess," Penelope said but somewhere in the depths of her mind a voice told her that this was different, this was something else entirely. Shaking her head and gratefully feeling the voice slip away she turned to face Jason who was standing in the corner of the room next to the pump. A small crease of worry appeared on his forehead but immediately vanished when Penelope's gaze fell on him, "well what should we do now?"

"Well Paris is right about you needing rest," Jason said whilst dropped down to the pump and bringing out a water bottle he kept in one of the large jumpsuit pockets. "So I suggest you sit down right now and try and get some sleep; I know you've been having some problems getting some shuteye."

Trying the gather up the pride she had slightly dismantled she stood up straight and said in a rather strong voice, "I'm fine Jason, I can even help cooking this thing right now," she kicked one of the loose limbs of the pig creature they had dragged in, "I don't need rest." While she did look bold when Jason came up to her she saw with some slight dissatisfaction that she still only reached his shoulders and just barely at that.

"Sleep, okay?" he questioned handing her his water bottle, "you've done a good job keeping us all in line for the past week; you deserve a break."

Almost grimacing she took the water bottle and took a quick sip of the water inside filled with minerals and left a rather sour taste in her mouth. Sighing she looked at the concern shinning in the depths of Jason's eyes and reluctantly agreed, nearly muttering. "Okay, I guess sleeping for a bit won't hurt that much," she looked down at her feet covered in scraps of leather tied together by strips of rope, as she talked she found a sudden interest in them.

"I'll take it easy for the next couple of days too," she muttered and looked up at Jason who looked somewhat relieved that she had given her consent. "But when I get back everything will go back to normal, like nothing happened," she said almost commanding.

Nodding Jason looked up at Paris who was leaning against the wall next to the door, eyes fixed on the slate of iron in the darkness of the stairs. "Well why don't you go to your _original_ room and go to sleep," Jason offered and glanced at the doorway leading outwards, pass Jocasta and to where he had brought his trinkets only an hour or so ago, "that's an order." He grinned.

"Fine," Penelope grunted and started to stagger forward and brushed pass Jocasta who raised an arm to stop her but stopped halfway, backing away from the door as Penelope passed through. Watching the brown haired woman move through the structure Jocasta forced what she was about to tell her in the back of her mind, no need to make things even more complicated for her.

"You think she'll be alright?" he questioned looking back at Jason who was now refilling the second water bottle he carried with him. Turning the pump off and watching the minerals swirl around inside the dented plastic bottle he glanced at the direction that Penelope had went and smiled.

"Of course she will," Jason said dropping the heavy water bottle into one of the large jumpsuit pockets, "she's Penny after all."

_She walked down the hallway, following the flowing way the stones marched down the hall to where she would eventually find herself. With every step however the distant black blot that was the end of the hallway grew farther and farther aware becoming nothing but a speck. Penelope stopped herself and looked around herself knowing that continuing to walk down the hall was useless._

_ Now at a complete stop she looked on her left to see a tall black door standing from the wall, a sleek thin thing with an undulating doorframe around it. Turning to her right she could see that the door was the exact same down to every detail, even the scratch near the bottom of the black wood. The entire hallway was full of copies of the door, flowing to the edge of her vision and beyond; she knew she would have to open the door before she could finally get to the end of the hallway._

_ Sighing she reached for the door on her left and grabbed the crystal doorknob feeling the cold weight it carried as she grasped it. Slowly turning it she felt a jolt go through her body as the door opened, creaking on rustic hinges and almost humming with a strange kind of power that ebbed into her core. Falling ajar the door released a flood of what appeared to be sunlight that filled the hallway around her which was now empty, she and the door were the only things there._

_ The power carried by the black door continued to swell almost burning through her skin as it came further and further away from the glossy black frame spilling out more and more daylight. Wanting the rip the door open, to flood the hall entirely with whatever was glowing on the other side Penelope tried to fling if forward but found her wrist numb, no matter what she tried her hand still slowly pulled open the door._

_ Now the surge of energy coming through the door was filling her head, thundering and pulsing in the recesses of her mind, ready to burst through her skull. With the door halfway open but still blocking her vision of what was on the other side the ebbing energy seemed to fill her head with light. Bright whiteness filled her head, pounding with the throbbing of her head and almost seemed to spill out of her making every hair stand on end._

_ In one swift movement the door was flung open and she stumbled backwards as the throbbing tightened to a constant pulsing. The light that filled her head seemed to explode, sending out ripples that should've burned her but it stayed there insider her head and bouncing about like a living thing. She thought that pass the constant throbbing overtaking her she could hear voices, screaming voices of a low pitch all of them coming together into a swell of horrid chanting._

_ And then it was done._

_ Slumping against the blank wall opposite of the door Penelope looked up and could see through the doorframe and the strange scene on the other side. The other side of the door was a large filed surrounded b y the distant haze of mountains on all sides and seemed to stretch on forever. Somewhere in the distance there was a fire which seemed nothing but a spark from this far away but she could see the churning column of smoke that was being whipped and warped by the rising wind._

_ However she looked at what was closest to the door which was the blackened ruin of some kind of house still alive with bright fire. A burnt corpse lay sprawled in front of it nothing but blackened skin burned onto bone, the jaw of the thing was stretched open showing a row of surprisingly white teeth that seemed to gleam in the sun. Standing in front of all of that was a man who stood close enough that he could've stepped through the door and join her in the hallway in two steps._

_ The man had a burn on his left hand which was a blackened mess and had a large splash of blood, not his own but still fresh, which covered the right side of his face and his shirt. A long stretch of wild red hair ran from his scalp down to his knees and seemed to have been burned at several points, shining through the long strands of red hair were two glistening eyes. Two bright and almost dead eyes that seemed too large to fill the man's sockets stared through the door and directly at Penelope._

_ The man looked as emotionless as ever but he held up his left arm and gave her a thumbs up with the blackened mess of his left hand. The burned web between his thumb and pointer finger cracked and rained down as ash as a result but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were locked on hers and seemed to glow as his mouth slowly opened and instead of his voice carrying through the doorframe it seemed like it was coming from the depths of her own head. _

_ "_Life for you,_" the man said and then he turned his thumbs up into a fist which he held against his chest which made even more burned skin crumble off. "_But not for your others. Life for you, death for them,_" the man then turned away from her and walked towards the burning building as the door slammed shut on its own accord._

_ Breathless Penelope struggled to her feet when she realized that there was still a sound coming from the door, something was thumping on the door. While she felt like she should've been afraid she walked closer to the black panel and pressed her ear against it as something continued to hammer on it from the other side. Pressing hear ear against it she could hear something sounding out behind it, a song playing almost beyond hearing._

_ A drifting song that made the world float and made Penelope feel weightless, ready to float off with the song to wherever it was going. Suddenly the drifting song came to a stop when she heard another sound behind her, a shrill ringing sound like the sound of metal tapped on glass. She started to turn around, seeing that the hallway had changed to an entranceway, and heard the shrill ringing again. _

_ Turning she_

Inhaled, almost repressing a yell she jumped forward. With any hint of sleep immediately taken from her she looked around to see that she was still in the bunker, the hallway had just been a dream. Looking about she almost expected the red haired man to be standing in the room next to hers but she was alone, she wasn't sure if she felt overjoyed or worried because of that.

Settling back down she pressed her head against the old blankets she used as a mattress and tried to bring herself back to sleep. However Penelope knew the instant that she woke up that sleep would be long in coming, the dream had flung out any chance of actual rest. Pulling her eyes shut she pressed deeper into the blankets trying to find a comfortable position when she heard something that made her heart stop.

Mouth agape she almost felt like screaming when she heard a gentle beat coming from the floor, or rather from some dark recess far below her. Coming up from somewhere deep beneath the floor but coming in clear enough to make Penelope freeze was the drifting song like it had slipped from the sea of sleep with her when she woke up. Starting to scream the drifting song swelled and almost seemed to carry her along with it.

**A/N: Hello everyone sorry for the not weekly update of this. I had a big essay to write for my English class and I haven't had time to write anything else. However I turned it in today so now there's plenty of time for me to write some new **_**Inferno **_**for you people. Sorry if this seemed a bit rushed but I was trying to keep up with what my mind was telling me to write XD**

**Thanks for reading and remember to leave a review, it's free so why not?**

**See ya next week! :D**


	3. The Tremors

Step into the Inferno

Chapter Three: The Tremors

The drifting song swelled once again.

It seemed to fill the air like a heavy mist as Penelope shot up from the floor, backing away from the spot where the song was drifting from. But even as she staggered away and pressed herself against the wall she could hear the strange airy music leaking from the depths, filling the air with the strange floating tune. She stopped screaming when she backed away but it seemed as if that didn't really matter now, now the air was filled with the accursed drifting song, the music that seemed to choke out any other sound.

Clamping slender fingers over her ears and digging them into her long brown curls she tried to tune out the drifting song but it still seemed to be coming into her head as clear as ever. Bouncing around in her skull the song seemed to be consuming everything, making her slide from the wall and sit on the floor as the song ate up the world, ripped apart the dirty stone room around her. Throwing her vision to the door on her left she could see Jocasta and Jason looking in at her both of them frozen and awe struck as the drifting song bubbled up from the floor. Out of the two of them Jocasta seemed to most entranced, a strange look of awe and horror twisting her bright face as the air became heavy with the smog of the drifting song.

Slamming against the wall Penelope tired to shy away from the song coming from under the floor, almost screaming the entire world around her seemed to shake. As she pushed herself further away from the excuse of a mattress she had left on the floor she felt the ground under her shake, the entire room seemed to be vibrating. Forcing her eyes open she looked to see that the entire room was shaking, thudding and lunging about in the ground like a wild heart as the music continued to swell from beneath the floor. It seemed as if the shaking was coming from the room she was in, the epicenter to some crazed earthquake that had started right under her.

Closing her eyes again the air seemed to sting her as the song intensified even more, biting into her skin with thousands of hot needles that refused to let go. The song bit deeper into her as the shaking continued, growing faster and almost throwing her about her small portion of the room. Taking refuge by thrusting herself against the back wall Penelope tucked herself into a ball, waiting for the accursed song to end and the tremors to taper off. As the world shook she could feel a deep pain settling in her mind, bringing up ancient images of doors, of burning farms, and women in red dresses still unaware they had been killed.

After what felt like an eternity the drifting sing which has reached the point that she would rather tear her own ears off and deal with that pain than the sound in her skull silenced itself. Opening her eyes she collapsed with a sigh of relief, but the floor under her still shook and thrashed like a cornered thing, whatever was going on beneath them was still far from over. Now pressing her hands to the floor to keep herself from being flung around the shaking room Penelope looked in horror as the earthquake reached its climax.

A few feet in front of her a large crack had appeared in the floor, only a centimeter thick but still ran from wall to wall and only seemed the grow wider as the tremors continued to shake the world. Flickering tongues of red dust and grime were flung out from the fissure as it widened, growing wider and wider with the rumbling of the hell Penelope was forced to call home. Coils of smoke were coughed up as well, swirling black hairs that came from the fissure like a departing soul from a body; the shaking continued.

Struck with silent awe Penelope continued to watch the growing fissure with her heart jumping and beating as fast as the shaking world around her. Finally the tremors finished whatever climax they had been building up to and started to drift towards the now strange stillness and calmness Penelope had fallen asleep to. As the last of the tremors ran their course the fissure which was now a dark slash across the stone floor coughed up its last breath of blue smoke and stilled.

Exhaling, Penelope found that she had been holding her breath for quite a while; she collapsed and looked at the doorway where Jason and Jocasta had been standing only a minute ago. Beyond the slightly crooked door she could Jason collapsed on his face a water bottle in one hand leaking out a steady stream of water. Behind him was Jocasta whose face was obscured by a net of red hair, a small portion of her jaw was visible through the net of hair and Penelope could see a trickle of blood sliding down her chin.

"Jason? Jocasta?" Penelope managed, pulling herself forward. Pulling herself a few feet forward and smearing her white gowns with even more grime she looked at her two collapsed friends. Both of them were breathing steadily, even though Penelope could see when Jocasta shifted she had coughed up blood; but she was still breathing regularly. Behind the two came Aeneas and Paris who practically trampled over each other to see what had happened to the rest of their small group.

"Is everyone alright?" the first person to speak was Ajax, the giant of a man hunched behind Aeneas and Paris who were both trying to force themselves into the room with Penelope. A smear of ink shot across his right cheek and in his huge coat pocket Penelope could see the bulge of the book he so often scribbled in. But that wasn't important to her, in front of her two of her friends were collapsed; something had to be done to help them.

Gathering herself Penelope sought whatever scrap of serenity that the tremors and insane song had left her and pulled herself up, brushing grime from her smeared white nightgown. "I think I'm alright," she assured them even though his head still seemed to be spinning, "but I'm not sure about Jason and Jocasta, they both collapsed when the shaking started, right after the song stopped…"

She stopped herself and glanced at the large crack which now split the room in two, the song seemed to make sense to her when she had first heard it through the floor but now it seemed jumbled. Nothing about it made sense, it didn't even sound like much a song when she thought back to the sound she had heard but it had been one when she first heard it, there was something about it she couldn't really remember. Had there actually ever been a song bubbling up from the floor?

Breaking the small fog of concentration Penelope had gathered around herself she stared down at Aeneas who was looking at Jason and Jocasta, inspecting them. Paris had taken the chance to scramble into the room and was currently standing at Penelope's side, a full two inches shorter than her. Both her and Paris looked down at Aeneas as he props Jason up who seems to be flickering from sleep to some kind of lucid waking.

"They seem alright," Aeneas said as he pulled Jocasta's hair from her face, "they don't have any broken bones at least." He sighed and straightened himself and cast his glance at the crack that ran down the center of the room, it seemed to be slowly getting bigger. Before he could question Penelope Paris pushed pass him and ran into the room, bolting straight towards Penelope without giving the collapsed forms of Jason and Jocasta a passing glance.

"Are you alright Penelope?" Paris questioned, taking a rather large step over the fissure which puffed up the occasional breath of blue smoke. "Were you hurt in the earthquake? How bad was it? Is everything alright?" Paris questioned in one breath as he rested his rather small hands on Penelope's shoulders, as if seeing she was physically standing there.

"Of course I am, don't worry," she said very gently pushed Paris' hands from her shoulder and readjusted her brown hair which had been thrown over her face in the quake. "I would be more worried about those two, they just kind of fell over when the earthquake-thing happened," Penelope found her gaze drifting to the crack in the floor. She found, with a sickening despair, that somewhere in the very back of her mind it seemed that the drifting song was still playing, echoing about in her very skull.

"Do you have any idea what this was?" Ajax questioned with one hand trying to desperately rub the ink stain that ran across his face. When Paris and Penelope turned to face him he turned his right cheek away from them, trying to hide the black smear of ink; he had refused that he even owned a pen before much less a journal. "I can see that whatever it was it must've started under us," he pointed out and looked down at the crack which was now about two inches wide and still throwing up thin blue smoke.

"I don't really know," Penelope admitted as she peered down into the crevice, pass the blue smoke and into the shadowy depth that was below it. The fissure wasn't just a crack in the stone; it was where the floor had been ripped apart to show some dark depth below it. "When it started there was this… sound… I guess that's technically what it was… that came up from it. After that sound came out Jocasta and Jason just kind of collapsed."

"Well whatever it is," Aeneas said as he slowly lowered himself to the floor to stare the unconscious Jason in the face, "it's making that fissure grow, it might not be the best idea to stay in the same room with whatever this thing is." While he talked he used his thumb to pull up one of Jason's eyelids and looked at the blank eye beneath, a look of trying to remember something came across his face as he leaned back. "Especially with this _sound _that seems to be coming up from it, I barely heard it but it almost seemed like it was going to knock me to the ground."

"So what are we going to do?" Paris questioned, for one of the few times since they had found the place his attention had been diverted from Penny and onto something else. "We can't just _leave_, aside from the remains of that laboratory we don't know what's out there. We almost all died trying to find this place and we could see the entrance to the bunker from the laboratory…"

For a minute of two there was an uneasy silence between the four of them as all of them gazed at the puffs of blue smoke coming from the crevice. All of them could feel a strange tremor that seemed to pulse in the air, as if the chamber was filling up with electricity and about to burst. Ajax opened his mouth to say something but was cut off when whatever was beneath them slowly started to mumble, sending shivers through the chamber as another quake ran by; the fissure split open.

"Oh, _shit!_" Penelope cursed taking a few steps away from the fissure which was now a good three inches across, small tongues of blue and gray smoke were now streaming from the crevice. The drifting song roared for a few seconds, apparently flowing out of the fissure and tumbling into the already electrified air. The song and the rumble of the ground seemed to start directly in the four of their minds, as if it had skipped passing through air and into their ears altogether and was sent straight to their skulls.

"What the fuck," Aeneas muttered as he staggered backwards and ran into Ajax who nearly feel backwards onto the stone floor and caught himself on one of the stone walls. Coming up from the depths of the fissure was a blue glow, subtle and weak at first but now overflowing from the fissure and flooding the room. While first scared the group of four now started to lean forward almost as one and tried to get a glance into the depths of the crevice which was now beaming out a white-blue light.

"What is this thing even built on top of?" Paris said to himself as he took a few curios steps forward and leaned down to get a look into the fissure. The coughs of blue and gray smoke had stopped coming up from the fissure and were now entirely replaced with the strange glowing blue light. Glaring down into the fissure a look of confusion passed over his face, darkening the natural pretty complexion and he slowly stood up as if trying to get a better look. "Wait, does anyone even know what that _thing_ is?" he questioned and pointed down to the fissure.

Both Ajax and Penelope rushed forward to steal a glance of what the fissure had opened up to reveal with Aeneas staying back and sitting near the two unconscious forms. Aeneas looked forward in interest as Ajax peered down into the crack, his face briefly a glowing blue orb in the dark of the room, before Ajax withdrew from whatever he had seen with a puzzled look across his face. Turning his attention towards Penelope, Aeneas watched as she drew herself forward and pressed herself towards the fissure, as if inspecting the thing as close as possible could help her decipher what it was.

"Well that's very…," for one of the few times since the six of them had woken up Penelope seemed to be at a loss for words, "_unusual._"

**A/N: Sorry for the month long wait guys. I know I keep trying to get this on a weekly schedule but with high school it just seems to be impossible. Plus writer's block had decided to squat its dingy little stool in my head and has been lounging about for the past few weeks- that filthy bugger. And for a final excuse: I was sick last week like actually had to go see someone that sick so typing up a story was the last thing on my mind for a while.**

**So this, along with my other work, is now on a whenever-I-can-get-it-done schedule. However I will try VERY EXTRA-EXTRA-EXTRA hard to get the next chapter posted very soon. Hopefully we can kick that little writer's block out along with his stupid little stool and suitcase! Like, seriously, screw writer's block and the horse he rode in on!**

**I might be getting a bit too carried away with this… :P**

**Hopefully see you soon!**


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